>>>Its a good point (I assume thats what you think). But no. I think the rights of the majority trump the rights of the individual . Your conversation with my wife example . Privacy fine if I was discussing a personal matter. Not so fine if I was discussing how to build or where to plant a bomb. So effectively no "right" to privacy.
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>>Enjoy Oceania.
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>You'll have to expand that a bit I'm afraid.

There's a good reason to be afraid, so I concur.

The little detail you missed in the reasoning above is that the content of your marital conversation may justify spying. But without spying nobody can know the content, so, ah, we can only give the Big Brother a carte blanche and generally allow him to retrieve any content, then rely on him to be very scrupulous when deciding what is private and what is not. But it isn't private anymore, is it?

IOW, this is a "better have thousand innocent conversations be eavesdropped than to have one suspicious one go unheard".